Car Review: 2013 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S

2013 Porsche 911 C4S.

PHOTO: Derek McNaughton, Postmedia News

By David Booth, Postmedia News

Originally published: May 29, 2013

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The whole point — at least ostensibly — of an automotive review is to evaluate, given a set of performance, engineering and fiscal parameters, how harmoniously the combination of wheels, chassis and engine work in unison. Whether the testing be objective or subjective, simple logic would seem to dictate the greater the attributes recorded, the more favourable said evaluation would be.

And, in Porsche’s lineup, the car most often cited, by aficionados especially, as the very best combination of the company’s many attributes is the Carrera 4S. Sufficiently muscular, incredibly well balanced and with just enough sensibility — thanks to the all-wheel-drive system denoted by the “4″ in the 911′s moniker — to make it seem almost practical, logically speaking, the all-wheel-drive S-model Carrera would seem the Porsche of choice.

Certainly, driving a 2013 4S reveals very few chinks in its armour. The motor is powerful — 400 horsepower thanks to the “S” in its moniker — and soulful. My tester had the benefit of the optional sport exhaust ($3,370), which liberates a few more decibels from the already glorious-sounding 3.8-litre six. A little button on the centre console opens a few flapper valves and, presto, you’re suddenly hauling down the Mulsanne straight, your big flat six straining as it stretches past 7,000 rpm.

And at full chat, the 4S hauls the proverbial ass. Porsche rates my seven-speed manual tester for a 4.5 second zero-to-100-kilometre-an-hour time, the seven-speed PDK automated manual just a little bit quicker because Launch Control and computers are just a little more adept, not to mention quicker, with the clutch work. In either case, however, both numbers are reasonably fast and the entire package is incredibly sophisticated. Even with the extra dogleg in its shift pattern (seventh gear is up and to the right, just the opposite of reverse, which is up and to the left), the new manual is slick indeed. You can’t get a powertrain much creamier than this.

The same applies to the Carrera 4S’s chassis. There are all manner of technologies at play here — Porsche’s Torque Vectoring (PTV) system, which distributes power to the appropriate wheel, and Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) that automatically adjusts the damping at all four wheels according to conditions and speed — but the main reason that it all works so harmoniously is the essential rightness of the basic chassis. Yes, the rear engine format is, at best, an anachronism made mandatory by Ferdinand Porsche’s legacy, but the company has had more than 50 years to perfect it and give German engineers half a century with anything, and they’ll usually figure out how to make it right.

Throw in the benefits of Porsche’s excellent all-wheel-drive system and you really have something. Long a fan of the company’s application of four driven wheels, the 4S is so communicative that I swear you can feel the front wheels trying to pull you out of curves on exactly the right line. Diehards will claim the tail-wagging rear-drive version is more pur sang, but for going fast with little drama, there’s no beating the 4S.

Unfortunately, that last statement is also the one chink in the 4S’s armour. A base Carrera 4S costs $120,500. My tester ka-chinged in at $140,275. Before taxes. For that much money, I want some drama. Hell, for that much money, I want to get the right brain, not just the left, in on the deal. For not even $29,000 more — a pittance if you’re already dropping a more than $140,000 on a sports car —you can get the 911 Turbo’s 520 horsepower worth of drama (not to mention, 487 pound-feet of torque worth of theatrics).

To be sure, most true-blue Porscheophiles will tell you that the 4S is a better car than the sometimes overwhelming Turbo. But, out on the street, where clipping the perfect apex is not of paramount importance, the 4S feels, well, a little flat. Punch the loud handle at low to medium revs, and while it hardly feels Camry-like, it certainly doesn’t pin you back in your seat. The perfect balance between engine, chassis and tire may be laudable feat and one worth congratulating, but were pure logic all that determined sports car choice, you could have just much fun tracking a Scion FR-S and save yourself a $100,000.

The same comparator even works for competitive luxury brands. Jaguar’s new F-Type, for instance, starts at nearly half the price of my tester and, for $88,900, you can have the nicely outfitted 380-hp Type S with enough money left over for a fully equipped all-wheel-drive A4 for the winter. The breathed-on Jag is all but as fast as the 4S, handles admirably well and is far more hedonistic inside. As for the intangibles, it is at least as alluring to the naked eye, just as storied a brand and the spine-tingling rasp that cascades out the F-Type S’s centre-mounted pipes makes the 911 sound like a phht-phht-pharting one-lung outboard in comparison. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: there’s no way in hell a pedestrian V6 can sound as vivid as Porsche’s classic boxer six. Well, you’d be wrong.

I loved driving the 4S. Were I looking for a Porsche that could double as a track car, it would be my 911 of choice. It is beautiful as 911s always are, as reliable as anything considered even remotely exotic and has 50 years of history you’ll feel every time you sit behind the wheel. By any measure of logic, the Carrera 4S is almost the perfect sports car. But little about buying a $140,000 sports car is logical.

2013 Porsche 911 Carrera 4S Cabriolet

The all-wheel-drive part of the equation is more important than the ‘S’

Considering that a) I don’t like convertibles and b) I was a little hard on the 4S Coupe, you’d think I’d like the Carrera 4 Cabriolet even less. And, were I judging the car simply for myself, I would; my bald head reacts very badly with the sun, I don’t much like the heat and I consider handling — and therefore chassis rigidity — far more important than al fresco driving. But my job is not to determine what I’d like to drive, but to aggregate what you might want to drive and, from this perspective, I think the base Carrera 4 is the better choice.

My reasoning is the very same as it is in my discussion of the 4S. I definitely recommend the “4″ aspect of the Carrera’s offering, Porsche’s all-wheel-drive system not only a safety measure in the rain and snow, but also a handling advantage in the dry. The rear-wheel-drive Carrera may be the more classic format, but AWD version is the better car.

As for my reasoning that the base version makes more sense than the “S” model, again, my rationale remains the same as in the 4S test. The S may have 50 more ponies than the base version, but in everyday driving, even the occasional launch from a stoplight, you really can’t tell the difference. Marketers want you to believe (because they can charge more money) that 0.4 less seconds to 100 kilometres an hour — for that is the difference between 4 and 4S version of the Carrera — is significant, but even in back-to-back driving, the advantage seems negligible. The S’s bigger — 3.8-litre versus 3.4L — feels a little torquier and responsive, but the base model feels roughly as fast and, perhaps more importantly, make the same engine noises.

In my estimation, the difference is not nearly enough to warrant the $16,700 bump Porsche Canada demands between the 4 and 4S Cabriolet. As to whether you want the Coupe or the Cabriolet, that will depend on how follicularly challenged you are. Or whether you have a hat that will stay on at high speeds.